A Prisoner Of War
by cholericDolphin
Summary: Thirteen months. That was the time she had already spent in that cold disgusting cell. She just wanted to see him again. The love of her life. Though the war itself wanted something different. Alternate timeline after Pein-attack. Rated T for dark themes.


Thirteen months.

That was the time she had already spent in that cold disgusting cell.

She was a prisoner of war, that much was pretty obvious to her, though she had absolutely no idea which enemy country had taken her after that dreadful fight with her squad in which she had lost consciousness so early on.

It had been an ambush, enemy ninja flying out of their hidings like birds trying to escape from possible danger. Yet that time it had been almost the complete opposite.

Before she had the chance to catch a glimpse of their attackers' hitai-ate, she had been forced to take out two of them, one jumping at her with a kunai in his hand from the left and another going straight from up front at her with something akin to a battle-scythe.

She simply had not noticed the one suddenly emerging from directly under her, dealing an uppercut to her beautiful face so hard that she had fallen on her back, her head hitting an unlucky placed rock.

When she had woken up, she had felt the coldness around her, the stench of rotten corpses and foul excreta in the humid air. She had wanted to gag, to stand up, to simply _run away_, but all that had been deemed impossible. The chains around her had been chakra-infused, holding her in place on the floor, reeking of humiliation.

Only hours later had she discovered her lack of eyeballs.

She had hyperventilated at first. Her closely-guarded clan secret had fallen into the hands of outsiders. Fiends. Proving what she had already long since known, what her _own family_ had never failed to vocalize.

She was an utter failure.

_The world would have been better__ of had you not been born._

A voice she had heard more and more often those days.

The fact that three days after her capture there had been two men scanning her brain for valuable information concerning her village did not help with her guilt.

She had wanted to cry so often, though her empty eye holes refused to produce tears.

To her it had felt that even her elemental affinity had deemed her unworthy.

Within the upcoming months her situation had worsened. The person who had been instructed with feeding her, obviously a woman by the sound of her clattering footsteps, had started coming only once a day after about month number three. She had been the only nice one of the people that frequently went by her cell, sometimes talking to the prisoner in it about trivial things, like the weather outside or the general situation in the outer world, like the war. It seemed that the initial Konoha against Iwa war had escalated very fast. The reason for it in the first place had been something so stupid, not a single person in the village that was known for being hidden in the leaves actually believed it before a first border skirmish had been reported.

Iwa had demanded the head of the Yellow Flash's son.

It had been ridiculous, though neither of the parties had backed off.

And this had lead to the failed diplomatic mission one Hyuuga Hinata had unfortunately been a part of.

Two months after the war's start Suna had decided that it could not stand that farce and joined the war, mostly to try and calm both sides again.

This angered the Tsuchikage so much that he had actually requested help of the Raikage, who had gladly thrown his men and himself into the fights more out of sheer boredom than anything else.

In month five of her imprisonment she had heard that the leader of Iwa had finally been dealt the killing blow, by none other than the man he had wanted to see dead so badly, Uzumaki Naruto.

At first she had thought that everything would go back to normal. The war would end, she would be released from the hole she had ended up in and she could finally see him again. The sound of his name alone had given her the almost long-lost hope of being free again.

Tough luck had it that everything seriously had gone to hell from that point on.

A new Tsuchikage had been appointed, and it had not really been surprising that the older one's son had turned out to be selected.

The man had practically gone on a revenge driven rampage.

Hinata had shivered at the news, scared for the one she loved the most, the person who had encouraged her while everyone else had looked down upon her. The food-woman had noticed and had squeezed her hand as comfortingly as she had been able to through the hard metal bars separating them.

"If I'm able to hear something, anything about him, I'll tell ya first, 'kay?" She had said then, in her usual warm voice that the prisoner had quickly found to be soothing, comfortable. She had just bit her lip and had lowered her head in appreciation.

She had not come back again.

Instead someone else came to bring her the necessary things to survive, a man whose voice did not bear the same friendliness and warmth she had gotten used to.

The captive had been disappointed, but did not complain once.

The following time she had spent thinking. Not about the past. Not about her old team. Not about Konoha. Not about the ambush. Not even about Naruto.

She had started to think of ways to escape. It was obvious, after almost a whole year that no one actually had had the time to come to her, wherever she was being held, and rescue her. No, she had had to find a way herself. The biggest problem though, had been her pretty much non-existent resources.

She had been blind. She had been enchained with chakra-infused handcuffs and shackles. For some reason she had been unable to use chakra, probably a specific seal.

It had taken her a total of three weeks to find the small piece of paper attached to her forearm. From then on it had almost been a piece of cake to take it off with her teeth, even if the chains had cut deeply into the skin of her hands in the process.

She had briefly wondered why not a single person had noticed her suddenly using chakra, or that the seal had been missing in any way, though she quickly found her answer when the man with the food came again.

"You're damn lucky that there are not enough ninja here to monitor this district…" He had murmured, and after taking a considerate amount of time to process the information she had managed to actually grin momentarily.

"And I suspect you are here because…?"

"I'm not a ninja." Had been the smug reply.

"I see." It had seemed that the not so socially adapted man actually was no threat, so she had started working on her handcuffs then, trying to wriggle her delicate hands through them when he talked again.

"You should be more careful." Had been the last thing she had heard from him before he had stood up, turning around and taking some steps away from her cell to leave.

"What about the war?" She had asked, timidly, her voice barely above a whisper, hoping that it had not already ended with a certain someone's death.

"I don't know, I'm as much a prisoner here as you are."

In the same night she had managed to free herself from the constricting chains, though that did not help her much in her quest to flee. Her leg muscles had atrophied so much that she had not even been able to stand up, least of all run. Even her chakra levels had been so low from not training for a year that cutting her shackles with an improvised version of a chakra-scalpel had drained her so much that she had almost fainted.

The next four days she had tried to build up at least a little bit of muscle, so she would be able to at least try to run for a little bit, a civilian guard would never be able to catch up to ninja anyway. That had been her desperate line of thought the entire time, driven by the instinct to use everything in her might to escape and survive. She had not even once noticed that the lack of eyesight would greatly hinder her in finding a way outside.

Too bad that at that dreadful fourth day an actual ninja had come inspecting the jail and its prisoners, seeing the dark-haired woman on her legs, standing, even walking around in her cell, sometimes bumping against the wall. It had not taken him too long to go into her cell, overpowering her, chaining her to the wall again, only much harder than before and placing the seal on her again, reinforcing it with extra much chakra.

She had lost all hope that night and wished not for the first time to finally die.

She had decided to stop eating. It had only made her suffering worse, had been her reasoning.

And now she was in the thirteenth month. It would not take her much more to die, she could feel her ribs almost painfully poking her too thin skin from the inside, her empty stomach had stopped making any sounds days before.

She managed a small smile. How ironic, she had never been a very superstitious person, but thirteen did seem like an unlucky number to her then. Or maybe not, it depended on the perspective, she mused.

The usually beautiful woman did not really know exactly which day it was, but she did not care at the moment. She had counted the days all the time by the appearances of the food-woman – or man, in the end – but she had ended up losing interest. The only thing she regretted was that she had not been able to see Naruto again, to at least say good-bye to him, that he did not even have the chance to answer to her confession all those months ago. He had actually tried to speak to her about it, but either their team-mates or missions had come up, so she had told him to wait until she would come back from her mission. She would find him, she had said, and she would hear him out whatever his answer might be.

And now it had come to this.

She started laughing, not being able to bear with the situation any longer, hoping that the action would exhaust her half-dead body even faster so she could finally find peace.

Suddenly an explosion resounded not too far away from her place, then another. She frowned, the enemy base could not possibly be attacked, right? It had not been attacked all of those thirteen months, so why now? What had changed?

She could hear some footsteps, though she could not register them fully, her mind somehow drifting off. Her body had lost all its power it seemed.

"Hinata?"

…_What? Who i__s that?_

"Hinata! It's you, right?" The voice was definitely male, though her senses had already dulled so much that she was not able to pin a face to it.

…_Why does he know my name?_

She could hear the sound of metal being bend and felt the floor beneath her vibrate a slight bit the second the unknown man had jumped to her side.

"I-I thought you were dead! Just what- what did they do to you? And your eyes…"

She felt his arms carefully hoisting her up until he probably noticed the chains attached to her limbs, quickly severing them with unnatural brutal strength she could not see but feel. The man then stood up, carrying her out of the cell until he could her faint whisper against his chest.

"Let me die…" He stopped in his tracks immediately, eyes glued to her from starvation marred face, shock evident on his features.

"No… I didn't give you my answer yet, and before that I can't allow you to die!"

She had no idea what he meant, only feeling something soft against her lips before blacking out.

* * *

She awoke to blindness and chemical stench. Her head hurt like hell and she found herself unable to move, quickly noticing she had various needles and tubes in her body probably connecting her to life-saving machines.

It took her a while to realize that it was no dream, but a hospital. She was free. At least as free as one could be, metaphorically still chained to those unknown objects.

Her heart-rate went up and she tried to breath through the elastic tube stuck in her throat, finding it impossible to do so.

When a pink-haired woman crashed through the door into her room she had already lost consciousness again.

* * *

She woke up again, though it was definitely night, seeing as the stars shimmered outside, visible through the open curtains of the window.

Groaning, Hinata tried to sit up, finding to her pleasure that most of the machinery connected to her had been removed, though she was forced to lie down again by a rather big hand.

Blinking, she looked up into the eyes she had fallen in love with so many years ago, though the face around them was disturbingly different.

"You've been in a coma, Hinata." He said, straight to the point, his voice so much deeper than she remembered.

"H-" She tried to speak, finding it impossible as a coughing fit overwhelmed her for a short while. He waited patiently for her, pressing a cup of water into her hands silently.

"Six years, two months, fourteen days and eight hours." He still stared at her eyes, almost emotionless.

She could not really comprehend the information. It just did not settle inside of her brain.

"You somehow managed to wake up two weeks ago, though. Sakura said that she had actually expected you to never wake up."

Hinata just stared at him. She had not really managed to listen to him, only seeing his older face, so much pain written in his features, and something else entirely. He had become really handsome-

"Why."

…Her mind felt just blank.

"Why did you want to die."

It was no question. He_ knew_ why she had wanted to die, but he wanted to hear it from her. The hell she had gone through, it would bring about everyone down, but he still could not believe that she just gave up like she had. Damn it, he had _seen_ all the rotten food lying around her in that cell.

No answer came, so he just went on.

"I loved you. I wanted to tell you. And you promised me to come back. You… You just left me alone." His voice was just a whisper and so… so disappointed. She was not able to answer, after years of not speaking her vocal cords had relaxed so much to the point of not being able to produce a sound. The only thing her body could do was suddenly produce tears and make a feeble attempt at grabbing his shirt.

Somehow not only their eyes were glued to each other, but their lips all of a sudden as well, and all thoughts flew out of the window. All the pain and suffering of those last years killed off in an instant, and she felt so happy, to know that after all the time one of the first things her eyes saw was him. The man she loved. So much…

"Geeze, Naruto, I've already told you that you can't just come in when you want to-" Sakura's eyes imitated dinner plates as she witnessed the scene in front of her. She actually dropped Hinata's medical chart on the floor. The sound of something clattering made the pair more or less jump apart, the male one ended up on the other side of the room.

While the medic stared at them like a fish, the patient blushed faintly, her body obviously forgotten how to do it properly, and the blonde became as red as the blood flowing in his veins.

"…Okay… I see you're feeling better… both of you… just don't do anything stupid until tomorrow…"

The unspoken message made Naruto's blush rival the one Hinata had always sported before.

* * *

The next day Hinata had found out that she was pretty healthy for someone being in a coma for so long and that her little sister Hanabi had forced Sakura to implant her some eyes of a Hyuuga's freshly found corpse, with the reason that she would not be able to bear seeing her sister awake again without their signature eyes…

Naruto had also explained what had happened during her imprisonment, that in the end Iwa's new Tsuchikage had surrendered when he had noticed that there were no ninja on his part to fight with anymore while Kumo had long since withdrawn from the war.

He had also taken the position of Hokage after finding her, though he had quickly given the title to Kakashi after Sakura had told him that she would not wake up again. He had not been able to take the responsibility at the time, the guilt having almost killed him.

Now Hinata was twenty-six years old, married to the third blond Hokage, and although she still could not go on any missions, she was quite fine with it.

Due to her special condition she was now confined inside of the walls of Konoha, yet she did not mind the fact that this time she was a prisoner of war again, a war with her overprotective husband that is.

* * *

Uhm... yeah! A one-shot that JUMPED me suddenly... I'm so lying, I just needed something to distract me from my homework- ahem! Hope you like it, cause I sat some hours in front of the computer for this one and my leg is already kinda hurting from sitting on it so long. -.- At first I wanted to make it a really dark fic, and I mean really really dark with Hinata dying in that cell, never hearing Naruto confess his love to her, too. But I couldn't help it! It would be just too cruel, especially since Kishimoto kills off all the romantic fluffiness in the manga! (If that guy doesn't include a confrontation between them soon, I'm gonna go on a rampage!") So... hope it's okay... not very much detail in this one, but this is a fic that's supposed to make _you_ guys think. :/ By the way, if there's anything, ANYTHING wrong with this story, like plot holes or grammar or whutever, please tell me! I tried to make it as believable as possible, so I need feedback on this. :P Wanna know if I succeeded, ya know? :D


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